Nuclear: November 2006 Archives

It's a good time to be studying nuclear engineering. As noted in the subhead of a recent story (subscribers only) in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "For the first time in decades, new reactors are being planned, and a new generation of engineers must be trained."

It's up to universities like UMR to do the training, and UMR is uniquely poised to do so. Unlike many universities with nuclear engineering programs, UMR is not hamstrung by what the Chronicle calls "the demise of the university-based reactor."

Graduate student Brandon Distler has a cool idea about chilling the core of nuclear reactors.

While water is what cools the core of a conventional nuclear reactor, Distler, a grad student in UMR's nuclear engineering program, says salt would be a better alternative in some advanced reactor designs. The federal Energy Department thinks his idea has merit and has granted Distler a fellowship to study it further.

Distler is one of only a dozen graduate students to receive the fellowship this year through the DOE’s Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. (Full story.)

Technorati tags: nuclear reactor